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Rockville, MD—Sayed Naved, President, Chief Executive Officer, and founder of Banyan Technology Solutions, was appointed to the Maryland State Board of Education in the year 2010 by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.

According to its website, the Maryland State Board of Education “is the voice of the public in its role as a policy maker for Maryland’s public schools, public libraries, and vocational rehabilitation services.” Prior to forming his own company, Naved worked in leadership roles for Fortune 500 corporations delivering Information Technology solutions to the U.S. Federal Government. In 2006, he served as a Vice-President to Yash Government Solutions, and was a capital planning and investment controls (CPIC) consultant for Suh’dutsing Technologies, LLC.

He is a current member and former chair at the Board of Trustees for the Islamic Center of Maryland and is the treasurer for the Aligarh Alumni Association. He also served as a Principal of the Islamic Center of Maryland Sunday School.

His biography on the Maryland State Board of Education website reads: “Mr. Naved is a community activist and is actively involved in programs to enhance the education of disadvantaged children. He is a member of the Steering Committee of a non-profit organization that provides subsistence, scholarship and financial aid to over 450 school age children and college students in India. He serves on the Board of many Maryland based non-profit organizations and he is committed to bringing industry best practices to the non-profit sector. “

Since his appointment, two years ago, Naved has worked on improving the Maryland State school system. He, along with his colleagues assigned to the Board, has been involved in publishing several school reports highlighting changes and issues facing the Maryland State school systems.

In October 2011, Naved was part of producing a manual for the “Maryland Nonpublic Student Textbook Program,” which highlighted the program requirements and procedures for ordering textbooks, hardware, software, and other electronic learning materials to help support Nonpublic schools Maryland.

This year, Naved contributed to a February 2012 report focusing on Maryland state school’s safety, healthy, and orderly environment. The report highlighted school system guidelines to understand the relationship between school discipline policies and student achievement and the achievement gap. The report addressed the issues concerning the school systems but it also concluded that the Board will continue to look into the topic and has intentions of “monitoring the data in the upcoming years to spotlight continuing problems.”

“This is where we belong,” says Naved, who moved to Maryland in 22 years ago. “This is our country. We see a lot more Muslim values in America than in most of the world — honesty, integrity, people taking care of neighbors, charity, freedom to practice religion.” He believes that “we as a community needs to define ourselves… who the Muslims are and what represent and not someone somewhere else with radical ideas define us.” He urges people to reach out and get involved in the civic activities, in the county, in the state, and the federal level as well. He gives message to the world that we need to show who we are, “peace-loving people and we do not want some few extremists to redefine what our beliefs are.”

Naved completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University, India in 1987 and moved to Maryland at the age of 26 to complete his Masters from College Park. He is married with two sons, one in college and one in high school and resides in Montgomery County.

Although he has his own company to run, Naved continues to strive to better his community and hopes to make a difference in Maryland by providing his expertise to the Board during the two years he has left to serve.